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astrobei · 1 year

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mike and goodbye my danish sweetheart mayhaps? 👁👁

yvie ur beautiful beautiful mind! u are so sick for this! *opens google docs*

Mike can’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but there was an undeniable shift— a split-second divergence during the summer of 1985 where everything changed for the worse.

Or, actually, he supposed he does know the exact moment it happened. It wasn’t even the whole awful business with Starcourt Mall that started it all, even though that was fresh enough in everyone’s minds for his mom to have put him in lockdown, effective the second the paramedics had looked him over and declared him free of everything except some cuts and some bruising and maybe a minor concussion. And sure, that sucked, but that left Mike confined to the four walls and basement of his house for at least the foreseeable future, which was maybe even worse.

Okay, not actually worse, because Mike considered himself to err a bit on the dramatic side, but Max had just watched her asshole stepbrother die in her arms, and Mike was dramatic but not totally off-the-rails insensitive, okay? And it was two weeks after the Starcourt Mall incident that it happened— him and Will and Lucas and Dustin splayed flat on their backs in the basement, fighting off the cloying summer heat with every portable fan and cold drink they could find in the house.

Mike and Will were lying side by side, their feet propped up onto the front cushions of the sofa, the table and chairs moved out of the way to make room. Mike was holding a cold can of Coke to his forehead, watching the hem of Will’s shorts wrinkle and flatten out as he readjusted his position for the hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes. Will was particularly antsy that day, even more restless and fidgety than normal, always readjusting his legs where they slipped and bumped into Mike’s, tapping his fingers against the floor, playing with the sticky cellophane wrapper of his third popsicle. Mike had just been opening his mouth to ask what was wrong, why Will had been so on edge and nervous all day, when Will blurted it out.

“I’m moving,” he said, staring straight up at the ceiling, unblinking.

Mike frowned, turning his head to the side to look at Will. “What?”

Behind them, out of sight, he heard a rustling noise as Lucas and Dustin also sat up. Will didn’t move.

“I’m moving,” he said again, this time quieter and less urgent, like he’d gotten something out of his system the first time, the nervous, fidgety thing that had been consuming him all day. Will took in a deep breath. “We’re moving,” he added, “all of us. Me and my mom and Jonathan and El— we’re moving to California.”

You could have heard a pin drop with how quiet it fell. Lucas had been talking to Dustin about something, trying out for some sports team— baseball, maybe basketball— but the two of them had gone silent too. Mike’s brain felt like how it did a lot in class, when he’d been too busy slipping notes back and forth to pay attention for ten minutes, and suddenly he was being called on to answer a question up on the board— reeling, processing on ten-times speed trying to catch up. Because Will was—

“California?” Lucas’ mouth had dropped open, eyes wide. “You’re moving to California?”

Will was still staring up at the ceiling. He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and it came out barely over a whisper. “We leave in October.”

This time, it was Dustin’s turn. “October? But that’s— what about high school?”

Will took in another deep breath. Maybe Mike was imagining it, but it seemed a bit shaky, uncertain. “I’ll be going to high school there,” he said. “And I wasn’t supposed to— I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. My mom didn’t want me to, not until we sold the house and everything, but— I couldn’t not tell you guys.”

“You can’t move!” Lucas was saying. “You’re— you’re Will! We need you here!”

Dustin was saying something too, but Mike was starting to feel like he was listening to the whole conversation from under ten feet of water, their voices strange and distorted, seeing their mouths move with no words to match. Because there was no way Will was— Will couldn’t be—

“Mike?” They were all staring at him, and Mike realized that he hadn’t said anything since Will first said those awful, world-stopping words— I’m moving— and Mike’s entire world had, in fact, come to a screeching, juddering halt.

Dustin was looking at him, eyes wide and pleading, like Mike could somehow talk Will into staying, all on his own, as if this was his decision in the first place. “Aren’t you doing to say anything?”

Mike had nothing to say, and everything at the same time. He wanted to say a lot of things: how the air around him had started to feel frigid and hard to breathe, even at the mere thought of Will not being there anymore. How Will had seemingly existed in parallel to him since the first crystal-clear emergence of his memories from the murky haze of time. How he hadn’t quite processed the whole thing in the first place— I’m moving— and how California was all the way on the opposite side of the country, and couldn’t Joyce Byers move them to Indianapolis? Chicago? Even— even somewhere on the east coast, where Will would be in the same time zone as him and it wouldn’t feel like a piece of him got relocated, half a world away.

Suddenly, the floor of Mike’s basement seemed a lot less solid than before.

“California?” he said at last, his voice cracking on the last syllable, but for once, no one said anything. “You’re really moving?”

Will didn’t meet his eyes. He’d been avoiding Mike for the second half of the summer, saying he was too busy to come over unless the rest of the Party happened to be there. He didn’t want to play D&D with them anymore, either, begging out of Mike’s offers to start a new campaign. And Mike wasn’t an idiot— he knew why Will was avoiding him, knew there was an unspoken line that he’d crossed that night in his garage, knew that that was the sort of damaged trust that couldn’t be mended in a few weeks.

And, for a second, with Will picking determinedly at his fingernails instead of looking Mike in the eye, Mike wondered just how much Will had even protested when Joyce first brought up California.

It didn’t sink in when the For Sale sign went up, and it didn’t sink in when his mom knocked on his door to apologetically tell him the news— as if he didn’t already know— and it didn’t even sink in when the For Sale sign went down and a Sold sign went up, all enthusiastic yellow letters punctuated with an exclamation mark, as if this was something Mike should be happy about.

It didn’t sink in until an unseasonably warm weekend in October, when Mike had walked into the Byers’ house to find the walls stripped bare and Will’s room empty. And seemingly in an instant, all of the memories Mike had made in that twenty foot by twenty foot corner of Hawkins, Indiana came crashing down around him like a wave breaking on jagged rocky shores. Christmases at the Byers’, shared birthday parties and sleepovers, working their way through Will’s music collection, eating pudding on the floor of Will’s room at midnight, giggling hysterically through the chocolate smeared over their chins. All of it coming down, all at once.

El was kissing him, her teddy bear clutched tightly in her hand, and Mike felt sad, of course, but probably not as sad as he should have felt about El— who apparently was his girlfriend again— moving to the other side of the country.

And then Will Byers was putting his D&D set down on the donation bin, and he was looking Mike in the eyes for the first time in months, and something was settling deep into the hollows of Mike’s stomach, half-warm and giddy at Will smiling at him, half-soured with dread, because that’s when the last piece fell into place, and it finally sank in.

Will was leaving. Will was moving to California— forever. Will wasn’t going to come back.

Mike isn’t a total idiot, okay? He knows what this means— the sinking feeling that started overtaking his entire body from the second Will first said it— I’m moving— up until now, when it’s turned into something so all-encompassing that it feels like he’s in a constant state of freefall. That tug at his gut, the swooping sensation of the floor going insubstantial under your feet. Mike isn’t an idiot, and he knows what this means, and he’s trying to do something about it, but the phone line direct to the Byers’ house is busy for the sixth time in half as many days.

It’s only been a couple of weeks without the Byers here, but Mike can feel their absence like it’s a physical thing— a knife lodged firmly between his two smallest, most fragile ribs. He misses Joyce– her warm smile and the way she would ruffle his hair absentmindedly when she walked by him, just like she did with Will. He misses El, of course, misses her sharp wit and her curiosity and her unyielding compassion for her friends, even if he doesn’t miss the rest of it– the boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, even if her letters come back signed Love, El, and even if looking at them makes something bitter and unpleasant rise up in the back of Mike’s throat. He supposes he even misses Jonathan, kind of, and even if Mike didn’t, Nancy would be missing him enough for both of them.

It’s Will, of course, that he misses the most, which should probably go without saying, but Mike finds himself saying it anyway– turning the words over in his mouth late at night, sleepless hours spent with his walkie turned to a channel he knows he’ll never hear Will on again. I miss Will, he thinks, except that doesn’t even come close to conveying the dense, astringent truth of it. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him.

And what stings even more is this: that he can’t say with any degree of certainty that Will misses him back. The summer of 1985 will go down in history as the summer Mike Wheeler was a bad friend, which is a truth that haunts him, on those same sleepless nights Mike spends tossing and turning, running his tongue over the jagged edges of the words he can’t even bring himself to say over the phone, on the rare occasion he can catch Will on the other end. Mike Wheeler is a lot of things– a coward, a liar. A fraud. A bad friend. Too late for things that matter.

He can’t blame Will for not wanting to talk to him, either. Maybe Will wants to hold onto the Mike that already exists in his mind– a kinder, more selfless version of him. One that didn’t hurt the people closest to him. One that was braver, one that wouldn’t have driven Will Byers out of his home in the pouring rain, one that wouldn’t have lied to his girlfriend, one that wouldn’t have lied to himself.

Mike dials the number again and waits, but the flutter of excitement in his stomach has long since died. He wonders what it might have been like if he hadn’t been too late. If he’d biked to Will Byers’ house earlier in the summer, like he did that night after their fight, and apologized. Properly and honestly— if he’d sat him down and just been honest. If he’d said sorry earlier, if they hadn’t spent the tentative remnants of summer dancing around one another, time that was already borrowed and running out like the last dregs in an hourglass. If Will hadn’t been too afraid to even look Mike in the eyes until the day he left. If he’d been better. A good friend. If he’d been everything Will used to see in him and nothing like the person holding the phone now. If he’d said something sooner. What would things have been like?

Will had probably been excited to go to California, Mike thinks. He’d probably been excited to start fresh, away from Mike. New friends– better friends. Friends who weren’t Mike. Friends who were anyone but Mike.

The line is busy again. Mike hangs up the phone and takes a deep, steadying breath in. He doesn’t know why he’s so upset. Will’s going to call him back when the phone is free, and they’ll talk.

It’s going to be fine.

#byler #i see an opportunity to write mike wheeler and i take it #also this got away from me #can't believe i wrote 2k words of mike wheeler angst instead of doing my stats hw #actually i can #mike wheeler #will byers #fic #ficlet #byler fic #fun sized fics

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